Bergeron writes about local, state & national topics, as well as other matters of interest.

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One of my flowering cacti. It is unrelated to this story. Yet , as I hope you will agree, it offers a momentarily pleasant diversion. (Bergeron Image)

I’ve never understood why some municipalities and school districts are so hard-nosed about providing information under the OPRA statute of New Jersey. Without helpful compliance to the Open Public Records Act, it becomes nearly impossible for petitioners to get information in a timely fashion, if at all.

Still, some administrators and elected officials, often acting in consort, either refuse to provide information as requested, stall, or release it in an unacceptable manner. But in New Jersey, such responses can come with steep penalties attached.

The previous administration and elected officials of the Borough of Raritan began to find this out the hard way about five years ago when a request by the Courier News – part of the Gannett media chain – requested payroll information in a specific electronic format, so that the data could be crunched by a computer.

The Borough replied that the payroll data requested would be made available through its vendor, Action Data Services, but that it could be provided in a PDF format only.

Later the Borough advised Gannett that the information would be provided in the electronic format originally requested, but there would be a fee $1,100 to cover the costs incurred by Action Data Services, its provider.

Information supplied in a PDF format, although useful to know in its entirety, cannot be sorted and analyzed on a computer unless the format is changed into that of an electronic spreadsheet such as is available with the popular Microsoft Excel program which allows for great flexibility and rigorous analysis.

Gannett found the $1,100 fee excessive, and took the matter to court. After arduous, expensive years of litigation, the media company won a judgment of $596,000 to cover its litigation costs which, according to Gannett, does not cover all of the legal fees incurred to settle the matter.